He came here

On Saturday we put up our Christmas tree, too early probably, but it’s only a month away really isn’t it ;-)

Our two kids had very different experiences of decorating the tree.

Bethany climbed the ladder, helped me get the tree and decorations out of the loft. She carefully unpacked the fairy lights and baubles, and then hung them on the tree in a way that only a 4 year old can manage. There were baubles all clustered together, tinsel and fairy lights all over the floor, and in our nativity scene we managed to have a sheep in the manger instead of baby Jesus.

She loved the process.

In fact, every time people come around to our house she proudly shows them all the hard work she has done to get the tree ready.

James on the other hand was asleep for his afternoon nap while all this was going on. Before he went to sleep our lounge looked ‘normal’ and when he woke up it was decorated and ready for Christmas. He got a big surprise when he saw the transformation, but the problem is that he didn’t get to participate in the preparation of the tree. He’s missed out on so much of the fun of the Christmas tree process – getting it ready.

The joy isn’t all in the enjoyment of the finished tree, a huge part of the joy is sharing the preparation process together.

This Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent, and although it feels really early, it’s only 4 weeks until Christmas. We’ve got 4 weeks to enjoy the process of getting ready for Christmas. If all we do is to participate in Christmas on the 25th December and we don’t go through the process of ‘getting ready’ then we miss out on so much of the enjoyment of the season.

This year I want to enjoy Christmas properly, that means, no last minute shopping, no worrying about how much time we spend travelling to see our respective families, no moaning about singing Christmas carols in church, and no forgetting who we are actually celebrating.

We have a whole month to get ready for Christmas, guess why? Because the ending of the Christmas story is so unbelievable that we need to prepare ourselves for it every single year.

Beneath the wrapping paper, mountains of food, (occasionally) too many drinks, and Christmas crackers, there is a tiny priceless piece of truth:

He came HERE

Lots of people will miss it, in fact, the bible says that we need to ‘seek the Kingdom of God’, its almost as if its being hidden from the view of those who aren’t specifically looking for it.

So, lets take a month to prepare ourselves, to get ready, to seek in the full expectation that we will find Him HERE with us.

Song for the week:

Glory of it all – David Crowder band

If any of this has grabbed your interest and you want to chat about it, then you can reach me on Twitter @peterjshort. I’d love to hear from you.

Comments

There are currently no comments on this post.

Add a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment. Please click here to login or if you do not have an account you can register here.